{"id":71,"date":"2014-06-09T14:07:13","date_gmt":"2014-06-09T21:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bellevuecollege.edu\/astronomy\/?page_id=71"},"modified":"2026-11-10T11:32:16","modified_gmt":"2026-11-10T19:32:16","slug":"planetarium","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bellevuecollege.edu\/astronomy\/planetarium\/","title":{"rendered":"Planetarium"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Bellevue College is home to the Willard Geer Planetarium<\/a>, the only planetarium at a community college that is also used as a teaching classroom. Among his many accomplishments, Dr. Willard Geer was the original inventor of the color television tube, Bellevue College’s first Physics teacher, and the founder of the first major planetarium in the Puget Sound Region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

William Geer moved to Bellevue in 1968, when BCC was just starting out, and found out that the planetarium had no instruments, so he tried to solve this issue. He led a fundraising campaign that included local elementary students, education grants and private donations. This led to the founding of the “Friends of the Planetarium” society to support planetarium shows to local students. Their support helped Bellevue College install a 16\u201d Schmidt Cassegrain telescope housed in a 15-foot dome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The planetarium has had a few upgrades over the years to different systems. From 2007 to 2024, we used a Digistar 3 from Evans and Sutherland. Recently, in fall 2024, we upgraded to a new system, a Digistar 7 (now we use Digistar 2025), including new projectors. Thanks to the generous support of the BC Foundation, the planetarium system is now state of the art and we are preparing to welcome back local community groups and Bellevue College students to a renewed planetarium experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are now able to receive a limited number of school groups in our dome for cost-free shows. Please fill out this form<\/a> and we will get back to you as soon as we can. Scheduling is done on a first-come, first-served basis.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"A
Planetarium 30-feet dome to the left and telescope dome to the right.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Learn Astronomy in the Planetarium<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In our 30-feet planetarium dome, we are able to recreate the clear night sky. The projection system (Evans and Sutherland Digistar 2025 system now installed, including new 4K projectors) enables students to explore the stars, the Solar System, galaxies, and other objects, and allows them to travel through the universe in their classroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

College courses in astronomy that are taught in B244 are held in the planetarium, which is a unique feature of our College. This includes in-person and hybrid sections of Astronomy 100, Astronomy 101, and parts of Astronomy 201 (typically offered in Spring).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Planetarium Shows<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Our planetarium has recently completed a major upgrade, thanks to major support from the Bellevue College Foundation. <\/strong>We will be closed during the Summer, and we hope to announce our Outreach Program soon. However, if you are interested in public shows<\/strong>, please fill out this form instead<\/a>, so we can add you to our emailing list to find out when we resume these!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"View<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

View of bright galaxies from the night sky in Bellevue. This is how they would look if their brightness was extremely enhanced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bellevue College is home to the Willard Geer Planetarium, the only planetarium at a community college that is also used as a teaching classroom. Among his many accomplishments, Dr. Willard Geer was the original inventor of the color television tube, Bellevue College's first Physics teacher, and the founder of the first major planetarium in the ...more about Planetarium<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-71","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bellevuecollege.edu\/astronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/71","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bellevuecollege.edu\/astronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bellevuecollege.edu\/astronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bellevuecollege.edu\/astronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bellevuecollege.edu\/astronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.bellevuecollege.edu\/astronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/71\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":606,"href":"https:\/\/www.bellevuecollege.edu\/astronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/71\/revisions\/606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bellevuecollege.edu\/astronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}